‘Time travel did this to me. Time travel aged me, Maddy,’ he’d said.

The fact that Liam was going to become that poor old man … something else for her to keep to herself until she figured that Liam was ready to hear it. She felt so lonely harbouring secrets like this; it separated her from the other two. It felt wrong. After all, they’d been recruited together: her, Liam, Sal … the three of them plucked from different times, from the very last seconds of their lives by the old man. They should be a team. There shouldn’t be secrets between them. Not ones like this.

‘You’re the team leader now,’ Foster had told her, ‘it’s down to you how and when you tell Liam about this.’

She watched the seagulls cautiously return to peck and pull at the plastic bags on the silt.

‘Just great,’ she muttered to herself. Something else to churn away inside her, keep her awake at night. Because it wasn’t just the Foster-is-Liam thing, was it? Oh no. There was that other thing, that scribbled message she’d found at their supply drop point … the one for her eyes only.

Maddy, look out for ‘Pandora’, we’re running out of time. Be safe and tell no one.

She wondered what she was freakin’ well supposed to make of that. It meant nothing to her. ‘Pandora’ — what was that apart from being a pretty stupid girl’s name?

‘Why does it have to be me?’ Her soft voice caused a strutting seagull nearby to pause and cock its head at her.

‘I’m not talking to you, dumb bird.’ The seagull resumed its scavenging, one beady black eye still warily on her. She watched lights flickering on in Manhattan as the sun began to settle behind the two tall pillars of the World Trade Center.

Foster recruited you for a reason. Foster put you in charge for a reason. Because he knows you’re smart enough to figure things out, Maddy.